Home Art Music Apps Misc CV Contact Search

Practical Advices Regarding Lucid Dreaming Introduction Some years ago I developed an interest in lucid dreaming (LD). For all of those who don't know, LD is when you are aware that you are dreaming, even though you are not fully awake. After talking to people and browsing the internet, it seems to me as it is a very common thing that people who are interested in LD are also interested in achieving LD at will. It also seems to me as though most people are eager to learn how to control the dreams. Even though I rarely practice LD nowadays, I have picked up a few things over the course of years and learned a few tricks that I would like to share. Even though there is much else to be said about LD, this text foremost presents practical advices on how to achieve a higher degree of awareness of once own dreams and tips and tricks about how to get control of them. I think that dreams are characterized by phenomenon not common in daily life. Without pointing out the obvious differences I find that I am foremost rarely as unaware of my doings in my daily life, as when I dream. So one standpoint could be, that LD is all about awareness; hence the word lucid in LD. There for awareness will be the starting-point, when I now continue to write about the phases that characterizes the typical process and the steps to be taken, when one is to achieve a waked induced lucid dream (WILD). Some Introductory Words about WILD Let's say that you decide that you want to have a lucid dream. You can now decide on whether you want to become lucid in a dream or if you want to achieve a WILD. The later is a dream that hasn't been preceded by unconsciousness, something which probably isn't occuring naturaly that often for most people. As already emphasized this text is about awareness and will therefore not deal with the first approach, even though those kinds of LD's probably are the most common type for people just introduced to the phenomena. As already stated a WILD is a LD that isn't preceded by a phase of unconsciousness, so in the beginning of the process you will be fully awake and situated at a location where you can relax and eventually fall asleep. You might, as for an example, want this location to be your bedroom. First you lie there in bed with your eyes open. Now close your eyes. Simply lying horizontally will probably produce a feeling of relaxation. After awhile you will become drowsy and eventually you will fall into sleep. This is good and not something that you should work against. You should allow yourself to fall asleep. To fall asleep is however not the same as loosing consciousness, even though some may think that this is so. It is true that quite often the process of falling asleep also render one unconscious. This is even more so when one is mentally or physically tired. There for one would probably find it easier to achieve a WILD when one is thoroughly rested before trying. Hypnogogia When one falls asleep one goes through different phases and states of mind. The first sign of that one is about to fall asleep may be the feeling of relaxation of the body. When the body relaxes more deeply, one will notice that thoughts may begin to drift. This is a good sign and something that one should not work against. At this stage you should not take control of the thoughts. Simply let the thoughts drift and let your self drift deeper into sleep. This is however not the same as that you should stop being aware. It is of outmost importance that you keep being aware. Some may feel that the only way of keeping awareness is to keep controlling once thoughts, but there is another way. Instead of controlling you should simply observe your thoughts. It is all about letting go, but being aware of what happens when you do. After a while you will notice that you will become more emerged with what ever you are thinking about. The thoughts you have will tend to evolve in to fantasies and stories that goes beyond ordinary daydreams in intensity. This is called hypnogogia. If you just keep being aware your thoughts will turn into dreams and you will have achieved a WILD. However at this point it may get hard to keep being conscious. Fortunately there is a little trick. As soon as you feel relaxed enough and just before your thought starts to wander, you should think about a song that you like. Think about the song as if though you would be humming it aloud. You will feel as though it is played inside your head and not just something that you imagine that you hear. After a while you will actually hear the song, as if though someone would be playing it on as for an example the radio. When you start to hear the song like that, you are ready to step into a LD. Stepping into a LD When stepping in to a LD you should do like this. Imagine that you are looking at your hands. At first you may not see anything, but after a while of visualization you will. However if you concentrate to hard you might stir yourself awake, so take your time and don't get to excited about it. Simply imagine that you see your hands and visualize this for your minds eye. Eventually you will see your hands. This will of course not be you physical hands, but your mental representation of your hands. In the future I will refer to these hands as your dreams hands. When you can see your dream hands you are actually having a LD. There for you only have to turn your gaze from your dream hands and have a look around. What will happen now is that your mind will automatically create an environment for you to explore. Keeping the LD Alive While having a LD the dream environment is created automatically, just as with ordinary dreams, so you do not have to do anything but staying aware. As I see it there are mainly two things that could cause the termination of the LD. The first one is that you wake up and the other one is that you become unconscious. One could wake up for a number of different reasons. One reason that seems pretty common is that he or she who attains a LD the first time becomes so thrilled that he/she wakes up. However by practicing one can learn to have strong feelings during a LD without waking up. You have to learn how to think and feel in the new state of consciousness. However if you find yourself beginning or actually waking up from a LD you can easy re-enter the LD at will. If you find that you have woken up, simply do not open your eyes! Just lie still and relax. Now to re-enter the LD, do as you did before when first stepping into the LD. Just look at your dream hands until you see them. When you do look around and continue exploring your dream. The second problem is that one easily becomes unconscious during the LD, and slip of into an ordinary dream. It is a little the same as when one becomes tired in waken life. When one gets tired thoughts becomes drenched by drowsiness and the clarity of things turns fuzzy. One will feel that the awareness is slipping and that the LD degrades into an ordinary dream. When one becomes aware of any of this, it is quite easy to reinforce the LD by again looking at the dream hands until they are seen clearly. When one does, this is a sign that the LD is reinforced. It might be hard for the lucid dreamer to cope with this balancing act between ordinary dream and waking up, and one probably has to train by practicing LD often to learn this. Controlling and Shaping a Dream One popular thing is to control or shape the dream at will. Even though it might sound difficult at first, it is actually quite easy to learn how to do it. Mastering dream control is done by practicing, but one does not have to master dream control to benefit and play around with the dream. It could be a good thing to have some experience in LD, but my belief is that practicing controlling and shaping the dream actually is a very good way of learning and training LD. The basics for controlling and shaping the dream, is that everything you dream is actually already a creation of yours. Dream control is actually only shaping and controlling at will, thus not letting the unconscious doing all the work. Also dream control and shaping is all about imagination. This is how it is done. To begin with you have to be in a LD in order for this to work. Now think of something that you would want to be a part of the dream. It could for an example be a situation, environment, an event or an object. Think strongly about what you have decided to create and say to yourself that: "When I snap my fingers, the following will happened/be created…" For small things like creating a stool out of thin air, this will probably suffice. It might require some more effort to change big things like the environment. So when it comes to big things, or when snapping the fingers doesn't seem to do the trick, try and do it again but this time with the dream eyes shut. Having closed dreams eyes might make it a little easier for the brain to accept the sudden shift of environment or other major element in the dream. One could also experiment with looking at once dream hands as when stepping into the LD, instead of snapping with the fingers. Waking Up From the Lucid Dream Lets say that you want to wake up from a LD. If one has great control over the LD it is very easy and is simply done just by wanting to do this, i.e. you simply do it. If one doesn't have such control more effort is required. If one does not succeed one will eventually drift into unconsciousness and then wake up in the ordinarily way. If one wakes up at will, the step from being emerged in LD, to stepping out of bed and taking a shower, could be done in less then 10 seconds. However I think that one should take it a little easy and stay in bed for awhile before going about the day. Sleep Paralysis If one experiments with LD enough, one will eventually experience body paralysis. This is when one finds one self waking up not being able to move. This is called sleep paralysis and it is not something dangerous. The paralysis only holds I grasp for a short period of time. Sleep paralysis is when you become awake but your body hasn't. So if you experience sleep paralysis, don't worry. Just take some time to let the body catch up with you. Additional Comments Dream control and reshaping the dream at will is fun and rewarding. I would however like to take the opportunity to stress the fact that instead of controlling and reshaping things in the dream, one could take a little different approach instead. As for an example if one meets a monster in the dream, do not whish the monster away but try and confront the fear it represents to you instead! Use your dream control to stop yourself from running away and face the monster with peace! This document was created 041123 and updated 041123. If you enjoyed this page you might want to have a look at this: Qigong Exercise, Meditation Cushion Sewing Schemes.